


Safe

by wowbright



Series: Glee Season 4 episode reactions [15]
Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Episode: s04e18 Shooting Star, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:25:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4.18 reaction fic. Kurt finds out about the shooting at McKinley. Originally Published April 18, 2013, on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

When Kurt emerges from the movie theater with Adam and turns his phone on, it buzzes several times.

“Popular, aren’t you?” Adam says, his tone teasing and his eyes mischievous. He has the sweetness of chocolate to him — though as Kurt swallows Adam’s words he tastes the slightest hint of bitterness, too.

Being around Adam has been harder since  _Moulin Rouge_ , no longer as light and easy-going as it used to be. Most of the time that they’re together, though, Kurt tries to pretend nothing’s changed, because that’s what he needs right now: no more unhappy changes.

So Kurt stuffs his phone in his pocket without looking at the messages and reaches for Adam’s hand. He gives it a reassuring squeeze, ignoring the renewed buzzing of his phone as they walk to the subway.

*

This is how Kurt finds out: he slides the door open and suddenly Santana is on him, squeezing him in a visegrip of a hug and sobbing tear stains into his dry-clean-only wool jacket.

“Santana?” He tries to lift an arm to pat her head, but she’s squeezing his shoulders so tightly it’s a lost cause. He looks helplessly over at Adam.

“I just keep thinking about Brittany alone in that bathroom and I wasn’t there to help her. I left her there, Kurt.”  Her words are half-garbled by sobs.

“What bathroom, Santana?”

Santana doesn’t look up. “During the shooting. She was in the hall when the gun went off and it was the closest place to hide and —”

Kurt’s heard before of people’s blood going cold, but that’s not exactly the sensation he feels at this moment. It’s more like frost spreading up his backbone. “Santana. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She unburies her face from his shoulder and looks up at him. “You didn’t get my messages?”

Kurt shakes his head.

“Oh,” she says. And then again, “Oh.”

The frost spreads to his arms. He looks at Santana, and waits.

“There was a shooting at McKinley,” she finally says.

“And Brittany —?” He can’t finish the sentence.

She hears it, anyway. “Is okay. She didn’t get shot.”

His knees go cold, too, and start shaking. “Blaine?” He forces his mouth to shape the syllable, but he’s not sure if any sound comes out.

“Oh god no, Kurt. No. Blaine’s okay. Brittany told me everyone is okay. No one got hit.”

“Okay,” Kurt says. “I think I’m going to go sit down.” He looks at Adam. “And check my phone messages.

*

Adam makes tea while Kurt checks his messages on the couch and Santana goes to the fire escape to call Brittany. There’s a missed call but no voicemail from his dad, a dozen or so texts from Santana, a text from Artie (“I’m glad you got into NYADA. Sorry I wasn’t much help there.”) and two from Blaine:

 **3:17 p.m. -**   _Glee rehearsal not going as planned. Could use a happy distraction. Tell me something good about your day?_

**5:43 p.m. -** _Hey Kurt. Could you call me when you get a chance? Thanks._

Kurt looks up from his phone as Adam sets a cup of Earl Grey on the coffee table. He’s taken his beanie off. Without it, he looks thinner than usual and haggard, like a young Eponine. “There’s nothing I can do, is there?”

“You could —” Kurt starts, because he knows what it feels like to watch someone fall apart and not be able to do anything about it. He wants to give Adam the sense of usefulness Kurt needed when his mother was dying, and when his father was in a coma, and when Blaine was half-blind, and Dave almost died.

But the only thing Kurt wants right now is to hear Blaine’s voice, and to feel his body, warm and alive and safe against his own.

“No,” Kurt says. “There isn’t. I’m sorry. But … thank you for the tea,” Kurt finally says.

“It’s nothing.” Adam steps toward Kurt, touching his shoulder lightly. Kurt could lift his hand and wrap it around Adam’s, he should do that, should offer some sort of reassurance — but he doesn’t. “It’s really, really nothing.”

“Earl Grey is never nothing,” Kurt says solemnly.

Adam smiles, but it’s sad and stricken. “Do you want me to stay?’

Kurt doesn’t answer.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Kurt doesn’t exactly answer that, either. He stares at the cup of tea, delicate and warm, and feels Adam watching him. “I want Blaine,” he whispers.

*

Adam leaves quietly.

*

“Kurt?” Blaine’s voice is worn and raw, but it’s definitely Blaine’s.

Kurt starts sobbing as soon as he hears it.

“You heard?” Blaine says.

Kurt’s throat is spasming so hard he can’t get the words out. He grabs the cup of tea and takes a slow swig, sets the cup back down and breathes deep.”From Santana,” he finally manages to say. “Is that … did you send the first message during the lockdown?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you say that’s what was going on?”

Blaine makes a noise like sniffling. Kurt’s pretty sure it is. “I guess I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt starts crying again. “I want you to worry me. You should never have to worry alone.”

*****

They don’t talk for long; Blaine’s dad comes home a few minutes into their conversation.

*

“Blaine?” Kurt says when they’re on the phone again later that night. They’re calmer now — or maybe just exhausted — so they haven’t cried much. At Blaine’s insistence Kurt has told him a bunch of good things that happened today (even though, to Kurt, they all seem insignificant now): how it’s sunny and springlike today in New York, how Kurt finally did a pirouette that didn’t make him want to hide his face in shame, and then another and another; how he revealed enough of his soul in his acting workshop to please his instructor, but not enough to hurt himself; how he was asked to lead the next discussion at the Tennessee Williams play-reading group even though he’s its most junior member.

Kurt eventually runs out of minutiae to share. There’s a long silence. Then: “Blaine?”

“Yeah?” Blaine answers.

“I want to come see you. I looked at the train schedule and I think I could get there by Saturday and — I really want to see you.”

“I don’t know,” Blaine says.

“Do you — Do you want to be alone?”

“No,” Blaine says. “It’s just — I feel safe with you.”

“OK.”

“And if you’re here, I think … I think I would want to do things that maybe we shouldn’t do. Because I feel safe when we’re together like that.”

“That’s okay,” Kurt says. “I … I would do that. I want you to feel … You deserve to feel safe, Blaine.”

“But I think — I don’t know, it’s still just today and I think I’m in shock and I’m completely incapable of making any decisions, but I also think if you came here I wouldn’t know how to watch you go back to New York.”

“Oh,” Kurt says.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have to come back to New York.”

“Your semester isn’t over yet, Kurt.”

“I could … maybe I could get incompletes and finish up over the summer.”

“Kurt, I would hate myself.”

“But I … I don’t want you to be alone, Blaine. You’re my —” and he almost says best friend, but the words suddenly sound hollow. “Everything, Blaine. You’re everything. And I’m not just saying that because of what happened today. I’ve known for a while now. I just … I didn’t know what to do about it. But now I know.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything for a bit. Kurt thinks he hears him crying, but he doesn’t ask. He just lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling and waits.

After a minute or two, Blaine speaks. “Kurt?”

“Yeah?” Kurt says.

“I love you.”

“I know,” Kurt says, and means it. “I love you, too.”


End file.
